Japanese Charts Again Dominated by Nintendo

The Japanese videogame hardware and software charts for the week ending on December 21 are out and the period leading up to the holidays seems to be proving especially fruitful for sales, with all consoles registering increased numbers and with prospects of seeing even better sales in the coming week.

The Nintendo DS went over 200,000 units again, for the second time in a row, selling 204,100 consoles. Again, most of the sales were of the newer DSi model, which includes two cameras and better overall performance. The PlayStation Portable from Sony sold 146,000 units in the same period, with most of the sales being made up of the new PSP-4000 model.

In the home console segment, again, Nintendo had the upper hand, selling 131,000 Wii gaming consoles in one week, while the closest competitor was Sony with its PlayStation 3, which saw sales increase slightly to 39,000 units moved in one week. The Microsoft made Xbox 360 sold 12,900 units and only managed to outsell the aging PlayStation 2, which posted sales of 8,700. The effects of the price cut the Xbox 360 got in September are wearing off and the PS3 is returning to its dominant role in Japan.

The best selling videogame of the week was Dissidia: Final Fantasy, made by Square Enix, managing to sell 489,000 copies in the first week, showing the strength that the franchise still has in Japan. Another new release that managed to sell a big amount of copies in its first week is Gundam Musou2 for the PlayStation 3, published by Koei. Number three in the videogames chart is Nintendo’s Kirby Super Star Ultra, selling 150,000 units. Animal Crossing: City Folk is continuing to sell well with 145,000 units delivered, while Tales of Hearts was at number five, with 124,000 in sales.